Faith

I grew up in a small town called Utsunomiya, three hours away from Tokyo. When I was a child, I was certain that there was a God and that He loved me. Then I grew up and began to wonder, “If there is a good God, why is there so much suffering in the world? Why do innocent children die? Why is the...

In those times when grief accompanies us and we find ourselves alone in the middle of the night, does God shed tears with us?

Hendel Butoy was born in Brazil and raised in southern California. He studied at the California Institute of the Arts, and was then offered a position as an animator at Walt Disney in 1979.

Whether we are cooking, repairing things, or solving life's problems, we are always learning from each other. However, when it comes to certain areas, including church life, the interchange of experiences is lacking. Communities often keep their ideas, and especially their mistakes, to themselves. Can we rediscover the deeply biblical nature of knowledge sharing?

Trying to describe a dying church like the one he was called to serve, Pastor Chris Lewis uses the image of a car "turned over, in a ditch, covered by weeds and beer cans, with a rusted out engine, and a couple of bodies in the trunk."

The year 1685 gave the world two of its greatest composers: Johann Sebastian Bach and George Friedrich Handel. The presence of the great biblical subjects in their masterpieces not only filled the hearts of believers with joy, but determined a new direction in the evolution of the musical language, which continues to have an impact to this day.

I’m sure you’ve heard the statement: “I’m all about Jesus, but I’m not interested in church.” I’ve heard this many times and have even found myself saying it during certain periods of my life.

On the night when heaven descended among mortals, it was not the high priests or scholars who were the first to see God, but some lowly shepherds.

“All I can do is pray and hope.” With those words, I ended an article on infertility. After years of marriage and not one pregnancy, I did one of the only things I could do to help me process the fact that my wife and I might never have children: I wrote about it. 

Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer. – Rainer Maria Rilke

“And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19).

The words God is not listening! He is not answering! are the essence of one of our most troubling complaints. Is there an answer to it powerful enough to pull us from doubt’s darkness?

For many years, Dr Jonathan Ward was a military chaplain. When I talked to Dr Ward about his long career, we touched upon some sensitive topics: Does the presence of a Christian chaplain in the military mean God’s approval of military operations? How does a military chaplain serve in the context of a conflict?

In the heart of the Garden of Eden, where everything seems perfect, there is an ancient struggle between freedom and restriction—a struggle we have all experienced.

From my experience and the conversations I have had so far, I have found that there are two major categories of people who come to doubt the existence of God.